Just a quick post for everyone who’s lucky enough to be using T-Mobile on their iPhone in the US. It’s possible to get a data plan for your iPhone at only $9.99. It’s edge only, but that doesn’t matter because T-Mobile’s 3G network is incompatible with the iPhone’s 3G radio.

Here it is:

1. Log into your account at tmobile.com. Change your device to be a silver (the pink one won’t work!) Motorola RAZR.
2. As of this writing, there’s a bug in the site that prevents you from seeing the correct data plans for your newly selected device, so log out of the site, then log back in again. Now fFind your way to the page that lists the possible services you can add on to your plan, and you should now be able to select a $9.99/month web plan ($20 gets you unlimited texting as well). Select it.
3. In your iPhone go to Settings->General->Network->Cellular Data Network and for the APN use internet2.voicestream.com. Leave the username and password blank.

You might need to wait up to 24 hours for the service to be activated. Just keep restarting your phone periodically and check to see if it starts working.

I just setup my iPhone so I can control it remotely and ultimately perform video captures of my activity on it. It’s a quick and painless process, and here’s a step by step for those interested:

1. Jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch There are various tutorials around that take you through the jailbreaking process. Just make sure to use the latest version of the jailbreaking tools and install Cydia if you’re prompted.
2. Launch Cydia and install Veency If this is your first time opening up Cydia, you’ll be prompted about what mode you want the program to run in; select ‘User’. Next click on the Sections tab at the bottom, select the Networking section and scroll down until you see Veency. Select it and press Install.
3. Download and install a VNC client If you’re on OS X, you can download Chicken of the VNC. On Windows, you can use Tight VNC.
4. Find your iPhone’s IP address On your phone go to Settings->Wi-Fi then click the blue disclosure button for the network you’re logged into. Take note of your iPhone’s IP address, because we’ll need it later. Mine is 192.168.1.50.
5. Launch VNC and connect to your iPhone Make sure your iPhone is unlocked and logged into your Wi-Fi network. Launch Chicken of the VNC (or Tight VNC) from your desktop, type in your iPhone’s IP address for the Host, and leave the Display at 0, then hit Connect. You should see a prompt on your iPhone asking you to accept or reject the connection.
   Go ahead and accept.
6. Control the iPhone You can control the iPhone with left-mouse clicks and the keyboard. You can simulate a press of the ‘Home’ button with a right-mouse click, and you can simulate the ‘Sleep/Power’ button with a middle-mouse click.
7. Capture the iPhone screen I like to use Screenflow on my Mac to capture screencasts. I’m not up to date on the best screen capturing software for Windows, but I’m sure there are plenty of options out there.

A couple caveats: The frame rate’s not that great, which produces some artifacts during animations, and any app that uses OpenGL doesn’t work at all.

I recently discovered the beauty of mod_python and python server pages (psp), and I’ve been slowly replacing the php code on my server as I make changes. One thing that took me awhile to figure out was how to get the user-agent of the requesting client. In the hopes of helping others in the same boat, here’s the line of code:

As you can see all the request’s header information is in the req.header_in dictionary.

After restoring a family member’s iPhone that was acting up, I began setting up t-zones for them, but couldn’t find the t-zones hack in the BigBoss repository. After some experimenting, I soon realized that none of the proxy configuration work is required anymore either. Setting up t-zones on your iPhone is now an easy 3 step process:

1. Go to Settings->General->Network->Cellular Data Network
2. Type wap.voicestream.com for the APN (leave the username and password) blank
3. There’s no step 3!

That’s all there is to it. YouTube even works over t-zones now.

BTW, if you’re a long time T-Mobile customer, you can call in right now and ask about the loyal customer plan. If you’ve been with them long enough, you can have a plan which gives you unlimited minutes for only $50 a month.

Here’s a step by step on how to install the new 2.1 firmware using PwnageTool. I’m assuming that you’ve alread Pwned your phone before when you follow this tutorial. If you haven’t, the steps at the end may be a little different for you.

1. Update to iTunes 8 and restart
2. After the reboot, plug in your phone, then open up iTunes. It will ask if you want to update your phone. Click ‘Download only’. If you accidentally clicked cancel, just click on your phone in the iTunes sidebar, then click ‘Update’ to get the latest firmware. Then once the download starts, unplug your iPhone from the USB port.
3. Once the download finishes, close iTunes
4. Open up the ‘Activity Monitor’ app from /Applications/Utilities. Find the ‘iTunes Helper’ in the list of running programs and kill it (the red button at the top left).
5. Set your phone’s auto-lock to never (Settings->General->Auto Lock->Never)
6. After downloading PwnageTool and copying it to your /Applications folder, launch the program.
7. Select your device (I’m using the original iPhone) and click the next arrow.
8. PwnageTool will search for the ipsw firmware file you just downloaded (and it should find it). Select it and click the next arrow.
9. Now PwnageTool will look for the bootloader v4.6 and 3.9 files. If you don’t have them, you can download them here. After downloading the files, click ‘No’ to searching the web for the bootloader file. At the next dialog, click ‘Yes’ to browse for the location where you downloaded the file.
10. Now PwnageTool will ask you if you have an iPhone contract that would normally activate through iTunes. If you are using the Apple approved carrier in your country, you can click ‘Yes’, and this will skip the unlocking process on your phone. Just say ‘No’ if you want your phone unlocked.
11. Now PwnageTool will build an ipsw file for your phone.
12. After the file is created, close PwnageTool, disconnect and turn off your phone, and open up iTunes.
13. Now we need to put the phone into recovery mode. While the phone is off, hold down the ‘Home’ button, and at the same time plug your phone into your Mac. Keep holding down the ‘Home’ button until iTunes tells you that your phone is in recovery mode and needs to be restored.
14. In iTunes, hold down the option key and click ‘Restore.’ Select the new firmware file that PwnageTool just created, and you should be good to go in about 10 minutes.
15. Enjoy your updated phone!